A comedian known for his political humor comes to the Genesee Theatre with a different spin on his act.

Dennis Miller, a five-time Emmy award-winning comedian, performs an 8 p.m. show Feb. 15 at the Genesee Theatre in Waukegan. He’s fresh off the release of his latest stand-up special, “Dennis Miller: Fake News — Real Jokes,” which was released last November via several on-demand platforms.

Miller might best be known as a “Weekend Update” anchor on “Saturday Night Live” from 1985-91. He now hosts a podcast and has a syndicated radio feature. He’s a best-selling author, called plays for “Monday Night Football” for two seasons, appeared on Fox Network’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and served as host and executive producer of CNBC’s “Dennis Miller.”

He has also appeared in films including “Disclosure,” “The Net,” “Murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” and “What Happens in Vegas.”

Always an outspoken political pundit, he’s scaled back the political talk for this upcoming tour.

“I want this show to be funny and I notice now that even if you’re funny politically you lose a lot of people because people just differ,” he said. “I’d say it’s about three quarters just flat-out funny about the world we live in, which obviously includes social media. I’m watching Tom Brokaw go through the wringer today. It’s his day to apologize. It seems like eggshells are the new linoleum.

“We live in very tense, fragile times, so I talk about that a little bit. Some about politics, but a little less. It’s so Hatfields and McCoys right now. I want it to be funny, so I’m going to talk about the world we live in as opposed to the political world we watch every day. There will be some of that, but it won’t be the majority. For years, I did political jokes because I was on ‘Weekend Update’ and you get used to it. But your prime directive is to just make people laugh, so that’s the intent of the evening.”

He’s been married to his wife Carolyn for 31 years.

“I had a simple formula up front. I married the smartest, sweetest, sexiest woman I’d ever met,” he said.

They have a couple of millennial children, and while he doesn’t mention them by name, he does talk about Millennials.

“I talk about their generation in general, but I don’t talk about the boys specifically,” he said.

Miller’s list of accomplishments and jobs is lengthy.

“The eclectic nature in my resume comes down to, in some instances, being fired from things,” he said. “I gave myself one day to be upset, but I always think showbiz pain is a very capricious form of pain. It doesn’t come close to real-life pain. There’s actual pain out there in the world. I was rather single-minded about getting employed. I grew up in Pittsburgh. My mom was a dietary worker for so many years. She used to make desserts in an old people’s home. My mother was loved there but she didn’t get the headlines, and she was actually doing something consequential.”

Miller, 65, doesn’t tour as much as he used to, averaging around 25 dates a year.

“I do a podcast and later in the year I’ve got a trip planned. I’m going to go to Tokyo and Shanghai and the interior China and the Himalayas and Sri Lanka,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for a long time and now I would like to see some of those things that other people saw while I was in those rooms under bad fluorescent lighting writing jokes for 35 years.”

He’s got nine comedy specials under his belt and he’d like to do a 10th — “it would mean something to me.”

“George Carlin has 13; I’ll never get there,” he said. “I think for the 10th one, I would like to write like I did the first one, before I really was known for ‘Saturday Night Live’ and topical humor. I would like to go back and write one called ‘Just Jokes.’ So that’s what I’m shooting for. If I have any goals in the next couple years, I’d like to have a 10th comedy special.”